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KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The Southern Oregon University football team was appointed preseason No. 1 for the first time Monday when the NAIA Top 25 preseason poll was released by the national office.
 

SOU Preseason Rankings (Since 1997)

Year	Rank	Finish
2000	12th	5-4
2001	t-14th	9-2
2002	4th	8-3
2003	5th	5-4
2013	14th	7-4
2014	22nd	13-2
2015	t-1st	??

The Raiders and Marian (Ind.), their opponent in the 2014 title game, both amassed 304 points in the poll, forcing the first preseason tie for the top spot since the NAIA merged its two football divisions in 1997.

Lurking close behind the Raiders are their first two opponents: No. 4 Carroll and No. 13 Eastern Oregon. Another Frontier Conference squad, Montana Western, received votes. And despite all that, the Frontier might still be wondering what it has to do to get some respect.

That's because the NAIA rankings directly contradict the Frontier preseason poll, which had Carroll as the favorite to win its 15^th conference title in 16 years when it was released two weeks ago. SOU, which garnered three of eight first-place votes in the Frontier poll, took eight of 14 first-place votes in the NAIA poll. Marian received five and Carroll got the other.

Not that SOU's Sept. 5 season-opener at Carroll was previously lacking storylines. Last year's three meetings were decided by a total of eight points, and Carroll won the conference title, but SOU erased a 17-point deficit entering the fourth quarter to knock off the top-ranked Saints in a blizzard and move on to the national semifinals.

Eastern Oregon will be at Raider Stadium on Sept. 12 for SOU's first home game.

Morningside (Iowa) is No. 3 and Saint Xavier (Ill.) – which SOU defeated in last year's semifinals – is tied at No. 4.

The Raiders had previously never been ranked higher than No. 4 in the preseason. They entered 2002 in that spot and went into 2003 ranked No. 5, but didn't appear in the preseason poll again for 10 years, finally getting back to 13^th going into 2013 after a quarterfinal appearance in 2012.

Last year's SOU team started 22^nd and hopped to No. 9 when the next poll came out three games into the season.

The Raiders earned their first-ever No. 1 ranking in the final poll of 2014, following their march through the NAIA playoffs, and kept the top spot in the 2015 spring poll.
 

RANK	LAST	SCHOOL (1st place votes)	2014	POINTS
T1	1	Southern Oregon (8)	13-2	304
T1	2	Marian (Ind.) (5)	11-3	304
3	3	Morningside (Iowa)	12-2	289
T4	4	Saint Xavier (Ill.)	10-3	277
T4	5	Carroll (Mont.) (1)	10-2	277
6	6	Grand View (Iowa)	11-2	254
7	7	Lindsey Wilson (Ky.)	10-3	240
8	9	MidAmerica Nazarene (Kan.)	9-2	227
9	8	Missouri Valley	9-4	222
10	10	Faulkner (Ala.)	9-3	200
11	11	Georgetown (Ky.)	8-3	198
12	12	Northwestern (Iowa)	9-2	181
13	13	Eastern Oregon	8-3	172
14	14	Ottawa (Kan.)	9-3	148
15	16	Baker (Kan.)	8-3	138
16	15	Campbellsville (Ky.)	7-4	136
17	17	Valley City State (N.D.)	9-2	105
18	19	Langston (Okla.)	7-5	98
19	18	William Penn (Iowa)	7-4	95
20	20	Robert Morris (Ill.)	8-3	90
21	21	Friends (Kan.)	8-3	64
T22	22	Doane (Neb.)	7-3	51
T22	24	Tabor (Kan.)	7-4	51
24	23	Webber International (Fla.)	8-3	42
25	25	Benedictine (Kan.)	7-4	36

Others Receiving Votes: Sterling (Kan.) 9; Saint Francis (Ind.) 9; Montana Western 9; Reinhardt (Ga.) 3.